


hope and pessimism

by togglemaps



Series: to make us steel [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Dreamsharing, Face-Fucking, Hair-pulling, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:30:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7657429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togglemaps/pseuds/togglemaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jon runs a gentle hand up and down Ghost’s back, pausing occasionally to scratch him behind the ear. He is crouched beside Ghost, with the leaders of the free folk arguing about Rhaegal above him. They are terrified of her, which he knows he should understand, though in truth he doesn't." </p><p>Jon tries to deal with Rhaegal, with Rickon, with Sansa, with all the Lords of the North.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope and pessimism

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much again to my beta verymilkytea, she's the best. <3
> 
> This follows almost directly on from the 'he does not so much sleep as dream' and it isn't going to make any sense at all if you haven't read that one, soz. Parts of this were very much inspired by the last episode of season 6, you'll know which parts when you read it, ha.

Jon runs a gentle hand up and down Ghost’s back, pausing occasionally to scratch him behind the ear. He is crouched beside Ghost, with the leaders of the free folk arguing about Rhaegal above him. They are terrified of her, which he knows he should understand, though in truth he doesn't. He likes these people but he cares little about their opinion of Rhaegal. He would argue with them if he thought it would have any impact on the outcome, but it won’t. 

She is too powerful for them to send her away and where would they send her besides? She is a dragon. She is a weapon of power without equal. 

They cannot send her away. 

Besides, after three days of coaxing, Tormund had finally stood within touching distance of Rhaegal. Even pressed his hand against her neck before backing away grumbling about pushy crows. 

Rhaegal is part of him and he wants Tormund to like her or, at the very least, not fear her. Rickon has been sleeping underneath one of Rhaegal’s wings at night, so Ghost has been sleeping at Jon or Tormund’s back and Tormund has grown to tolerate it. He’s less tolerant of turning around during the day to find Ghost watching him, but Jon thinks Tormund will even grow used to that in time. 

It takes longer than he thought it would but the leaders of the free folk eventually agree that they can’t do anything about Rhaegal. “The dragon is yours to restrain, Jon Snow,” Kyla, one of the free folk leaders, says before they disband. She seems resigned to it, as he he had known they all would be. 

“Do I ask too much of them, do you think?” Jon asks once all but Tormund have left. 

Tormund shrugs. “They’ll tell you when you do. They’ll realise it’s better to have her amongst the free folk eventually. One of those fancy lords came to see her with his own eyes this morning. Rickon was trying to get her to light a fire but she seemed to think it was beneath her dignity. The man clearly thought Rickon was one of ours and it disturbed him greatly.” 

Jon laughs.

 

Rickon has been away from the castle for long enough now that Sansa seems to have resigned herself to him not returning on his own. Rhaegal is laying on the ground, her head resting on a rock and her tail slowly moving back and forth. When Rickon sees Sansa walking towards them across the free folk's camp, he hides underneath one of the dragon’s wings.

More than likely, he hopes that Rhaegal will scare Sansa away as she does everyone else, but Sansa seems no more scared of Rhaegal than she is of Ghost. Clearly, no Stark has the good sense to scared of large, man-eating beasts, whether they be dragons or direwolves. 

She crouches down near Rickon, steadying herself with a hand on Rhaegal's neck. She turns her face towards Rhaegal’s and says, "Hello. I understand your name is Rhaegal. Mine is Sansa." 

Jon smiles and Rhaegal turns her head towards Sansa.

"Why are you introducing yourself to a _dragon_?" Rickon asks scathingly. Jon has had three arguments with Rickon just that morning, one about food, one about clothes and another that Jon isn’t sure what it was about, except it ended with Ghost placing himself between the two of them until Rickon stormed away. It was so much easier when Rickon was just a little boy, and you could just pick him up or make him sit down or just ignore him. Rickon is as tall as Jon now, though. Taller, when he straightens his back and lifts his head, which Rickon doesn’t do often. 

"Old Nan used to say dragons were as smart as any man," Sansa says calmly. 

Rhaegal lets out an irritated noise.

"Smarter, even," she says. 

Rhaegal lets out a sound that is almost a hum and Sansa smiles a little.

"You see?" she says. "Even a dragon appreciates courtesies."

Rickon says nothing in return, just lets out a snort that would have resulted in a deeply disappointed look and a lecture on manners from Father when Jon was his age. Jon is fairly certain that it wouldn’t have the same effect on Rickon as it did on Robb and Jon—they had usually brooded over Father’s words for days afterwards. 

"You must return to Winterfell. You are Lord there now, and Warden of the North besides. Father would not have wanted us to neglect our home and our responsibilities."

"Why should I care what he’d want? I don't even remember him. He left. That's all I know." The words are choked and angry, like Rickon knows he has lost something of immense value that he can never get back. 

Jon rubs his sternum, trying to displace the sudden pain in his chest. Of course Rickon doesn't remember Father. Rickon was so young when he left for King’s Landing and so much has happened since then. He looks around for Ghost and finds Tormund instead, watching him from one of the nearby fires. The pain in his chest settles a little and he looks back at Rickon and Sansa, bracketed by the dragon’s immense wings.

It takes a long time for Sansa to say anything and when she does, it’s “that’s fair”, so quietly that Jon almost doesn’t hear it. “This isn’t the life any of us were supposed to have, Rickon. None of us. But it’s the one we have and we need to make the best of it. You and Jon and I are going to make the best of it together. That means that we have to work out how to rule the North together. You are Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. No one expects you to know how to do that now, not alone. Until you come of age, Jon and I will rule with you. We will learn together. We must protect our family from our enemies and you should not ever think that we don’t have them. It must seem that the world cannot touch you underneath Rhaegal’s wings. I am sure she would do all she could to shield you.” Rhaegal’s tail, which had been moving slowly, whips aggressively from left to right. Jon smiles. Ghost does that as well, sometimes. “But there is only so much even a dragon can do. We must be strong, or we will not survive. I’m asking a great deal from you. Too much. But you must believe that I have no choice.” 

They both sit in silence for so long that by the time Rickon speaks, all the people who had been sitting with Tormund by the fire have left and been replaced. Jon keeps glancing back at him, looking for some sign that Tormund thinks he should step in, should interfere. Tormund simply stares calmly back at him. 

“What do we have to do?” Rickon asks quietly.

“Well, there’s the Maester. He was Maester to the Boltons and we have to decide whether to send him back to the Citadel and ask for another. We have sent out the ravens to inform the Lords of the North that we have retaken Winterfell and more than one wish to come and see for themselves. We must decide what to do with the Wildlings—” 

“Free folk,” Rickon corrects. 

“Free folk, of course, my apologies. We must determine what we need to do in order for the North to survive the Long Night. We must ensure that all that can be done to ensure that the White Walkers will fail in their purpose _is_ done. You and Jon and I will lead the North through the Long Night. We will survive. The Gods have sent us these challenges to make us strong. To make us steel. To ensure that we know that we can endure. That we _will_ endure. I believe that. I didn’t once, but I do now.” 

Rickon crawls out from underneath Rheagal’s wing and Sansa helps him to his feet and they rise together. Rickon stands straight and strong and tall and he nods. 

A weight lifts from Jon’s shoulders. He wasn’t certain anyone could reach Rickon, that he would be too wild and unrestrained to be Lord of Winterfell, that he would grow from a boy with no home to a man who could not keep one. He hadn’t realised how heavily that idea had weighed him down until it was gone. 

When he looks over at Tormund, he looks soft and amused, like he thinks Jon is an idiot. It isn’t a new look and it makes Jon smile. 

 

It is agreed that Rickon will spend as many nights in the castle as he does in the free folk camp, that he will spend his mornings in lessons with the Maester and his afternoons with Jon, Ser Davos and Tormund training with swords and shields and long bows and whatever else they decide to teach him. They decide to watch the Maester as they watch the servants—closely, and suspiciously. The Lords have been called to a feast in a month's time and they decide to watch them as they watch the Maester and the servants—closely, and suspiciously. 

He goes to bed exhausted but hopeful for the first time since he rose. After the first time Tormund fucked him, he went to bed sore and contented. When Rhaegal first came, he went to bed that night exultant. 

But this night he is hopeful. 

He dreams of a man with broad shoulders and dark hair and blue eyes. The man is a blacksmith and he is practising his trade, his hammer slamming down over and over onto a breastplate. He looks a bit like Stannis, if Stannis had been young and handsome and the sort of man who drew people to him rather than made them shy away. 

He thinks of Robert Baratheon and what every person in the Seven Kingdoms knew. That Robert Baratheon had more bastards than he had fingers, that Robert Baratheon had fucked more women than a dozen other men put together. 

He thinks of the Blacksmith and of Orys Baratheon, who had founded House Baratheon and is said to have been Aegon the Conqueror's bastard brother. He thinks of Rhaelle Targaryen, who had been Robert Baratheon’s grandmother. He thinks of his book filled with glyphs and notes and High Valyrian. 

He watches this man work and hopes he has his father’s warrior soul, that somehow he will find them. He hopes he’s a good man, though he knows how little it will matter if he isn’t. 

They need him, after all. 

When he wakes, he sees Rhaegal and flinches backwards, banging into the canvas wall behind him. She has stuck her massive head inside the tent and is looking around. “He isn’t here,” Jon says. “For every night Rickon is spending in the camp, he’s also staying a night in the castle. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

Rhaegal lets out a low mournful sound. 

“We’ll go flying in the morning, does that help?” 

She eyes him suspiciously. 

“I promise.” 

She rests her head on the ground. With her head and some of her neck inside the tent and the rest of her outside, she looks ridiculous. 

This is not a part of being a dragonrider that he anticipated. 

He stares at her and thinks of the dragon and the direwolf that lives inside his breast, of what would cheer him up if he were missing his brothers and his mother and now the boy who plays with him. He smiles at her and says, “I’ll make Tormund come see you after we’ve gone flying. How does that sound to you?” 

She brightens and he laughs. 

 

“I really don’t see why I should have to be _friendly_ with your fucking dragon.” 

Jon pulls off his cloak and goes to put more wood in the brazier. It’s cold in his tent, but not so bad as it could be. So long as the brazier is kept alight, it cuts through the worst of the chill. “She was missing Rickon and she stuck her head in my tent last night. You want yours to be next?” 

“You mean—while you were sleeping?” Tormund looks a little nauseous at the idea. 

He nods. 

“Tell her not to do that! That— _no_.” 

Jon laughs. “You’re going to hurt her feelings.” 

“Wouldn’t want that,” Tormund grumbles, then pauses and looks alarmed. “Actually—” 

Jon laughs. “You really wouldn’t want that, no,” He sits down on the pile of furs on his sleep pallet and motions Tormund forward. “There was something that you said, earlier.” 

“Earlier?” Tormund frowns. He goes to sit down beside Jon on the pallet, but Jon puts his hands on Tormund’s thighs to bide him to stay standing. 

Jon rises up onto his knees and says, “Earlier.” 

Tormund grins, a wide, satisfied thing, and reaches out to undo the tie that holds Jon’s hair in place. “Ah. Earlier. Something about pulling your hair while you suck my cock.” 

“Yes. That.” Jon smiles and looks up at him from underneath his eyelashes. He has seen women do such things before and it had always made his heart beat faster. Perhaps he looks silly, he feels it certainly, but Tormund’s eyes darken and he kisses him. It’s hard and wet, with Tormund’s tongue in his mouth and Tormund’s hand reaching down to roughly grope Jon’s cock through his pants. Tormund’s beard tickles a little, but Jon is already used to it, is starting to like it. 

Jon moans and Tormund straightens. Jon is breathing hard and Tormund—Tormund is smirking. He looks smug and it’s—it’s a good look. Jon did that to him. His cock has been getting hard since he summoned Tormund over to his bed and he’s harder now, harder than he thought he could be just after some kissing and groping. 

He undoes the makeshift belt holding up Tormund’s pants, pulls them and his smallclothes down. Tormund is well on the way to hard and Jon already knows one thing Tormunds likes. He takes the head into his mouth and sucks gently. He wraps a hand around the base and Tormund grabs his hair. He prepares himself for Tormund to pull but he doesn’t, not until Jon’s relaxed just a little. Then, he pulls hard and pushes his cock further into Jon’s mouth, Jon half-moaning and half-choking. Jon bobs his head up and down, trying to tell, somehow, if he’s doing this right. 

He pulls his mouth off Tormund’s cock and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can you—” he says. “I want—” He doesn’t know what he wants and he falls silent, frustrated. 

“You want me to fuck your mouth?” Tormund says. He’s smirking again and he still has a fistful of Jon’s hair. 

Jon whimpers and reaches down to grope himself roughly, rougher than Tormund had been with him. “Yes. That.” 

“I’m not going to know what you want one of these days you know,” he says, grinning. 

“We’ll work it out,” Jon says, then leans forward to take Tormund back into his mouth, taking him down as far as he can without choking, which isn’t anywhere near as far as he’d like. Maybe that’s something you can learn. 

Tormund grips his hair tightly and after Jon moans quietly, the grip tightens even further for a moment. He holds Jon’s head still and starts fucking his mouth. His eyes water a little and his jaw aches pleasantly and gods this is good. Different good than when Tormund had laid him out on the ground and put his cock in him. He cups Tormund’s balls gently in his hand and hears Tormund groan and his hips falter for a moment. 

Jon can hear himself moaning, hear himself around Tormund’s cock, can feel himself getting harder in his pants. When Tormund comes, it ends up half in his mouth and half on his face and when Tormund drops down onto his knees, he kisses Jon hard. Tormund undoes Jon’s pants and bends further down, taking Jon in his mouth. Jon places a hand over his mouth, trying to choke back the shocked yell. It doesn’t take him long to come down Tormund’s throat and collapse back against his furs. Tormund rocks back onto his heels. He’s smirking and putting his own cock away and then he leans forward to tuck Jon away as well, muttering about “frostbite” and “you don’t want to know”. 

He makes Jon sit up so they can settle down beneath the furs. Jon lays on his side, Tormund’s chest pressed against his back, and falls asleep. 

 

He wakes up warm, with Tormund pressed up against his back and Ghost curled up against his legs. He knows that the warmth is stolen, that it will disappear when he leaves them in bed, but he closes his eyes and pretends for just a little while. 

The pre dawn light is leaking into the tent and Tormund shouldn’t be here. It’s the free folk’s camp, but there are Northern men camped here as well and the men of the Vale travel freely between the various camps. He wishes he cared more, but he can barely bring himself to care at all. 

Maybe, when all this is done, he can settle with Tormund wherever the free folk end up and live with him as he pleases. He could wake up with him so many mornings that he begins to take it for granted. He can watch Tormund’s daughters grow and only ever come far enough south to check on Rickon and Sansa from time to time. 

It’s a fool’s dream. Anger curls around his stomach and settles there. The White Walkers are coming and if they are very, very lucky every man, woman and child in Westeros will not die. 

Jon is not especially lucky. 

He rubs his chest, where the knife wounds still hurt sometimes. They scarred over with unnatural quickness to go with his unnatural rise. 

He will do all he can to ensure that those he loves will live. He just wishes he could believe that will matter. 

 

Sansa wants to plan the feast down to the last detail. They don’t have enough of anything to have a truly impressive feast, the likes of which they could have had when Father had been alive. It isn’t even that they want to have one like when King Robert had come to Winterfell, just one like they’d had after harvest season. 

Jon goes hunting with Tormund and some of the Northerners, hoping they might catch some deer or other large game animals for the feast. One of Lady Mormont’s archers takes down a deer and between Jon and Tormund, they take down a boer. He has a feeling it won’t be nearly enough for the feast, but when they get back to Winterfell, the cook seems pleased enough. “Another few hunts and we’ll have plenty,” she says. 

He isn’t certain how to treat these servants, these unfamiliar faces in his childhood home. None survived the burning of Winterfell and it seems that all those who had been in King’s Landing when Father was executed had died there. 

He misses Old Nan, who had managed to make every single one of Ned Stark’s children quake in terror more than once. He misses Cook, who had always known to make extra lemon cakes for Sansa and to put aside some extra pork sausages for Jon. He misses knowing every person in the castle, misses being surrounded by people who watched him grow up, who _knew_ him. 

He doesn’t know this woman. This woman seems happy to be working for them, even though they had killed her Lord only weeks ago. He might feel the same way if his Lord had been Ramsey Bolton. 

Sansa wants to seat Tormund at the high table with them and Rickon and Ser Davos and Lady Mormont and Lord Royce and Littlefinger and little Lord Arryn during the feast. "He fought with us when these men would not," she says to Jon. "I wish to honour him and to shame them. It is not hard to do the second one."

"It will be crowded at the high table." He’s not certain how dignified it will be if they’re knocking elbows while eating their meal. 

"Hmm," she says. "I will think on it." 

She convinces Lord Arryn that the feast will be boring Northern lords discussing boring Northern things and has him ask Littlefinger to dine with him that evening. Seven people at the high table is far easier to deal with than nine and he’s both amused and amazed at how easily she arranges it all. 

They linger over lunch and she asks him about Tormund and Rhaegal. He avoids talking about the former but talks a great deal about the later, hoping she won’t notice. Rickon wants to go flying and as soon as he mentions it, Sansa wants to go as well. “There’s a problem with bugs,” he says, hoping to dissuade her. 

“What kind of problem?” 

“They get in your face and you eat them or they go up your nose, or in your eye if you’re really unlucky. That one hasn’t happened yet, thank the gods.” 

She bursts out laughing. “Is that really such a high price to pay to fly?” 

“No,” he admits. 

 

He dreams of a fleet of ships so large and magnificent that he can’t breathe and look at it at the same time. He has only seen the sea a handful of times and has never been on a ship. The sails on the ships are black with a three-headed dragon painted on them in red. There are so many ships he can’t see the end of them, to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west. 

He wonders what people in King’s Landing will say about this fleet of ships, wonders what terror it will inspire in Lannister hearts. 

A vicious thrill goes through him. Yes, this fleet will scare them, these people who killed his father and murdered his brother. He turns and the silver haired woman is there. “You’re going to Westeros?” he asks. 

She nods and points over his shoulder. 

Was that there before? There are no longer ships as far as the eye can see. To the west there is a sea and sky that is burning a fierce red. The Smoking Sea. There were supposed to be Fourteen Flames that had been burning since the Doom, bright and horrifying and said to turn a man mad if he stared too long. 

“Valyria,” he says softly. 

“We’re going the long way around, but it isn’t possible to avoid the Smoking Sea entirely, not unless you travel far out into the open sea. She was once the greatest empire the world has ever seen, gone in a day. Less. Forged with fire and destroyed the same way.” She sounds grim as she says it, her mouth set in a hard line, her brows furrowed and her face haunted. 

“Have you dreamed of it? Valyria, I mean.” He thinks of the Blacksmith, of the man who had loved him, of the city that had looked so beautiful and bewitching, that shined bright with the light of magic and marble and been too perfect to survive. 

“No. You have?” Her face is naked with envy. 

“Yes. It was—it was so beautiful it hurt the eyes to look upon it.” 

“I can imagine it was,” she says softly, and turns to look out at the edge of the Smoking Sea, at where Valyria once was. “I’ve spent all my life looking for a home and fearing I’ll never find one. What if I’m looking upon it now? Lost to me long before I was born.” 

“You’ll make yourself a home. Isn’t that what we all do?” he says, thinking of Tormund and Sansa and Rickon. 

She looks at him and for a moment she is lit red by the fire of the Smoking Sea, her hair and face aflame. 

 

Howland Reed is the first Lord to arrive at Winterfell and he does so laughably early. It seems that he left Greywater Watch days after he received the raven telling him that Winterfell was again in the hands of the Starks. 

Lord Reed has not left Greywater Watch since before Sansa was born. He and a wet-nurse were the ones who first brought Jon to Winterfell, when Father and Lady Stark were still in the South, when the only Stark in Winterfell had been his Uncle Benjen. 

When Lord Reed arrives in Winterfell, he is greeted by Sansa and he asks immediately to talk with Jon. Jon was in Tormund’s tent rather than his own when the summons came, which is lucky because he was naked except for some furs thrown over his shoulders and sitting on Tormund’s cock at the time. Tormund places a hand over Jon’s mouth and murmurs “Quick and quiet hmm?” Jon bites back a moan and keeps moving up and down, up and down. “Yes, that’s right, good boy.” He digs his fingernails into the meat of Jon’s arse and says, “I bet your thighs burn like you’ve been riding all day. Do you like that? I think you do.” Only the tiniest of moans makes it’s way out and it feels like a reward when Tormund’s fingernails trail down his arse to his thighs, digging in hard as they go. He buries his face in Tormund’s neck and bites down as he comes. Tormund grabs ahold of his hips and thrusts hard into Jon again and again until he comes. 

Tormund moves, holding Jon with a hand under his arse and another around his waist. Jon is still feeling a little limp when Tormund places him down on the pile of furs on his bed. It takes a moment to realise he’s being wiped down with a warm washer. He has no idea where Tormund got warm water but it has him sitting up and starting to reach for his clothes. “Do I smell like I’ve been having sex?” he asks. 

“Yes.” 

Jon grabs the washer, stands and starts scrubbing himself down. Tormund sits and watches until Jon throws the washer at him and says, “You too, you’re coming with me.” 

“Why?” 

“Because if I stand next to you, maybe they’ll think the smell is just you and not me.” 

Tormund is far less concerned about the smell than Jon is, so by the time Jon has pulled on his clothes, Tormund is dressed and poking every so often at his neck where, when Tormund has his chin up and to the side, you can see marks Jon has left there. 

“Should I leave some of these on you do you think? They’d look nice I bet.” Tormund smirks.

Jon goes red. He knows he shouldn’t, but he likes the idea. “No, people would be able to see them on me and I’d have to explain it. Your beard hides them.” 

“I suppose,” Tormund says. 

“My thighs are sore and you and I know why. Isn’t that better?” Jon smiles at Tormund and then leaves the tent, Tormund following close behind. 

A squire from the Vale leads them up to the castle and then to Father’s solar. Sansa’s now, maybe, or Rickon’s. Lord Reed is there, with Sansa and Rickon. He greets Lord Reed, then places a hand on Rickon’s shoulder and presses a kiss to Sansa’s hair. He wonders how she banished Littlefinger from the room. 

“This is Tormund Giantsbane,” Sansa says, standing up and motioning towards him with a hand. “He’s the leader of the Wildling camp and, uh, Jon’s friend.” 

Lord Reed’s eyebrows approach his hairline and he says, “Ah, of course.” 

Jon sits beside Sansa and Tormund beside him. Lord Reed fidgets, running a hand over the tabletop and adjusting his doublet. Finally, he sighs and says, “I’m not sure what to say. Your father…he was going to tell you, when the time was right. But he’s dead now, and your uncle too. I was friends with your father when we were young, and your aunt as well. I was at Harrenhal, when…I was at Harrenhal. And the Tower of Joy.” 

_Oh. He thinks I don’t know. Though, maybe, maybe, my dreams are just dreams, maybe Father is my father, maybe my aunt is my aunt and not my mother. Maybe I am simply mad or addled or spent too long in the cold._ He watches Lord Reed stare at the tabletop and then looks at Sansa and Rickon. Is this the last time he gets to be their brother? 

“Lyanna…she was held there for months. She—she was pregnant. Rhaegar Targaryen was the father of the baby. The labour was long and hard and there was no Maester. She was young and there was…there was a lot of blood. It happens sometimes, especially when—well.” _When the mother has spent months wanting to elsewhere,_ Jon thinks. _When she knows the child will be taken from her not long after he’s born. When her father and brother are dead, when her child’s father is dead, when her child’s half-brother and sister are dead._ “After, she developed a fever and—Ned was with her when she died.” Lord Reed looks up from the table and looks Jon right in the face. “He promised he would protect her son from those who would hurt him, and from those who would try and put him on the Iron Throne.” 

There is silence for a long time and, after looking from Lord Reed to Tormund and back again, Jon nods. “Yes. I—yes. I know.” 

“Your father—?” 

Jon shakes his head. “I dreamed it—of her, I mean. She was racing a horse with—” He looks at Sansa, at Rickon. “With Uncle Benjen. She was—” He smiles a little, his mouth twitching upwards for no more than a moment. “She was winning. Our Uncle Brandon, he was helping her put on armour for—I think it was jousting, is that—is that possible?” 

Lord Reed nods, very slowly, and says, “Yes. She jousted in the tournament at Harrenhal and defeated three squires who had attacked me. She was a horsewoman of unrivalled skill.” 

“She wanted to go home,” Jon says. “Maybe if she’d been at Winterfell, with a Maester, with family, she wouldn’t have died. He wanted me, though. He said she could do whatever she liked after—after I was born.” 

“You dreamed of her,” Sansa says softly. There are tears in her eyes and she uses a handkerchief to dab at them. 

“I don’t understand,” Rickon says, frowning. 

“Jon is our Aunt Lyanna’s son,” Sansa says softly. “And Rhaegar Targaryen’s.” She sounds more like she’s reciting something she knows only intellectually, like it is not something she truly believes. 

Rickon nods slowly. “Father took him in, to protect him?” 

“Yes, son,” Lord Reed says. 

 

There is quiet in the room, until Howland Reed clears his throat and excuses himself. Tormund goes to leave and Jon places a hand on his arm. They stare at each other for a moment until Tormund rolls his eyes, pats him on the knee and leaves anyway. 

Jon glares at his back. Traitor. 

Sansa still looks shocked, but he can’t read Rickon at all. 

“I wonder what’s for dinner,” Rickon says. 

Jon blinks. “What?” 

“Mutton,” Sansa says absently. “They’ve been cooking it since this morning. Apparently Cook has some sort of special sauce.” 

He stares silently at them for a moment. “I—can we not move on to dinner just yet? Does this, does this change anything?” 

“Dinner?” Rickon asks blankly. 

“Rhaegar and Lyanna.” 

Rickon still looks confused but Sansa sets her jaw and starts to go red in the face. “He wants to know if he’s still our brother,” she says. “He wants to know if it changes how we feel about him.” 

“No,” Rickon says, confused. 

Sansa hits Jon hard on the arm (“Ow!” he says) and hisses, “Of course it doesn’t. You’re our brother. Do you think Father loved you any less than he loved us? Do you?” 

“I don’t know anymore,” he admits quietly. It feels a betrayal to even think it, but it’s haunted him. Father loved him, of course he did. Didn’t he? 

“Don’t be stupid. He could have sent you away. It would have been so much easier for him. I know Mother wasn’t kind to you, I know that, but it was hard for her and hard for Father and he must have loved you and Lyanna so much. Loved you so much that he couldn’t risk even the possibility of something happening to you. It would have made things so much easier for him if he had told Mother but he didn’t, because even the possibility that he couldn’t trust her with your life was enough to stop him.” Sansa stands. “ _Idiot_ ,” she says, and sweeps out of the room. 

There was a moment of silence and then Rickon says, “I wonder what makes the special sauce special.” 

“We should get you something to eat,” Jon says. 

“Yes.” 

 

He dreams of it all over again that night, with the silver haired woman watching. She has tears falling from her eyes as she says, “We are _family_.” 

“Who are you?” he asks. _I should know,_ he thinks, sees all those ships with the three-headed dragon on their sails in his mind’s eye. _I do know._

She laughs. “I am Daenerys Targaryen and you are my heart’s brother.” She places a hand on her chest and Jon mimics her. 

For a moment, it feels as though their hearts beat together, that they are not two but one. She smiles and he wakes.

 

Lord Reed does not stay for the feast, simply renews his oath of fealty to House Stark the evening of his first day in Winterfell and leaves at first light the next day. The other lords begin arriving only a week later, some with large retinues as though they expect to have to justify their own existence. To remind them all that House Stark could not rule the North alone. 

Lord Manderly arrives in a litter, with guards and singers and food and enough wine and ale for all the lords of the North three times over. Sansa is pleased. The Boltons had bleed the cellars almost dry. 

The morning after he arrives, Lord Manderly requests a meeting with Sansa and Jon and Rickon. He is the only one who has asked to speak with them alone, to justify his own inaction. 

He expects Rickon to be bored and to fidget, to maybe even want to leave after greeting Lord Manderly. Instead, Rickon watches Lord Manderly closely as he greets Sansa, eyes sharp and hard. Rickon has healing wounds on his back from his time with the Boltons and scars from his time in the wild, but it’s the wounds Jon can’t see that he worries about most. 

No twelve year old should look at a man as if wondering when they will turn on him, of how much damage it will do when it finally happens. 

“I must beg forgiveness for not coming when you called the banners,” Lord Manderly says, soft and firm. “That I didn’t rise up against the Boltons at the first opportunity—it shames me. They murdered my boy. _My son._ I smiled and I played their games and I waited and waited and decided that I needed to wait longer. I was wrong. We all lost so much when we marched South, I feared to lose more. You know how many people died at the Red Wedding? Not just lords, but smallfolk too.” He shakes his head and says, hard and quiet and fierce, “All bonds of fealty between the North and the South were severed at the Red Wedding. What happened to Ned Stark was one thing, but what happened at the Red Wedding was murder. _Murder._ And they sought to rule us afterwards, as though we would forget they had _murdered_ our kin and our liege lord.” 

Rickon’s tilts his head to the side and looks contemplative. Sansa is nodding. 

“Not all,” Jon finally says. “It was the knights of the Vale who came to our aid against the Boltons.” 

“Of course,” Lord Manderly says. “But those were bonds of family and friendship were they not? Lord Arryn is your cousin, Lord Stark, Lady Sansa. Jon Arryn fostered your father when he was a boy. The Lady Sansa was sheltered there when the Lannisters”—he snarls the name like a vile curse—“claimed that she had tried to murder that vile little shit.” He almost immediately inclines his head at Sansa and apologises quietly for the language. 

“Oh no,” she says. “Vile little shit is the mildest description I can think of for Joffrey Lannister.” 

Lord Manderly laughs a little. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.” 

 

Rickon had been told to say a few words after the feasting was done. “Simply remind them who you are,” Sansa had told him. “Just say ‘I am Rickon Stark, I am your liege lord and I have named my sister and my brother my regents, who shall rule in my name until I come of age.’ You don’t need to be nervous, or say anything else if you don’t want to.” 

He had nodded and now, as Rickon stands at the end of the feast and looks out over the hall filled with Lords and their sons and their stewards, Jon looks for any sign of nervousness. House Stark has won back Winterfell, but House Stark is not yet strong again. _If you are to be nervous, be nervous later._ When Rickon glances down at Jon, he wills the boy to hear it but Rickon just smiles, small and hard. 

He realises there may be a problem he and Sansa have not anticipated. Perhaps Rickon is not nervous. Perhaps Rickon is angry. 

“Lords of the North, men and women of the free folk,” Rickon says, loud and clear. The men take a moment to quiet themselves but the way Rickon stares out over them, it doesn’t feel as though he is waiting for them, so much as judging them for taking so long. “I am Rickon Stark, head of House Stark and Lord of Winterfell. This is my home. I was born here. I honour Lord Royce of the Vale, who is no stranger here. He came with his son to the Wall, so he could become a man of the Night’s Watch. He stood with House Stark. I honour Lady Mormont, of Bear Island, whose mother and sisters marched South with my brother Robb. She stood with House Stark. I honour Ser Davos of House Seaworth, who stood with House Stark. I honour Tormund Giantsbane of the free folk, whose people stood with House Stark.” 

Rickon says nothing for several long moments, staring out over the tables of the great hall. More than one Lord is staring at the floor or the table and it is so quiet that he can actually hear every movement Tormund makes as takes a sip of wine and returns his goblet to the table. 

“I can name no more, though each of you has been sworn to House Stark for at least a thousand years, as Kings and Wardens of the North. Only one of you sought out an audience with us before eating our food, after you have spat on us and all those died at the Red Wedding. All those who would not stand with the Boltons, with the Freys, with the _Lannisters_ —” he spits that last name so angrily that more than one person flinches, “—House Stark has been a good friend and ally to each and every House here, in foul weather as well as fair. Can you all say the same now? 

“My sister is a good, kind woman. She would have me forgive, if not forget. My brother is a good, kind man. He would have me forgive, if not forget. But I am a boy of twelve and I am inclined to do neither.” 

He sits and nobody says a word for so long that the silence echoes in Jon’s ears. It is so quiet he can hear people shifting in their seats. He glances over at Sansa, whose eyes are flicking from place to place around the room. Her face is calm, but her eyes give her away. She is terrified, and for that alone he could strangle Rickon. 

Rickon then turns to Jon and says, “I believe you wanted to say something brother?” 

By the gods, how is he supposed to follow that? He clears his throat, uncomfortable, and rises to his feet. “My lords. I’m not quite sure what to say. All words have fled.” That got chuckles, most of them strained. He glances over at Tormund out of the corner of his eye and Tormund nods. “I am sure you have heard that the Citadel has sent out the white ravens. Winter is not coming, it is here and I have grave news. I have been North of the Wall. I have seen the dead rise and the White Walkers come. This will be the Long Night. The South have had the luxury of forgetting that it was always coming, but we in the North have not.” 

The hall was quiet no longer, though the talk was quieter than he would have expected. Even at the Wall, they had not believed readily and many of them had seen it with their own eyes. Perhaps there were too many Southerners at the Wall, who thought giants and unicorns and White Walkers were not extinct but myths. 

Nobody in the North thinks such things are myths. 

Lady Mormont stands. She is taller sitting in the chair than standing and he can hear Tormund offer her a leg up under his breath, which she dismisses with a flick of her wrist. “Lord Stark spoke harshly. Perhaps some of you think too harshly. He spent time here as a guest of Ramsey Bolton, so you must forgive him. Lord Cerwyn knows what it means to be a guest of the Boltons. If _you_ do not, you should ask him. The Long Night is here again, and we need a Stark to lead us. I will not kneel to any Lannister king, whose kin murdered our own. Bear Island knows no King but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. We have a Stark. What does it matter that he is a boy? Jon Snow lead his men into battle against the Boltons and with the help of the Vale and Lady Sansa, he won. We need no Southron King. We need no Southron regent. We have a _Northern_ King. _Northern_ regents.” She sat.

“We need no Southron King!” Lord Manderly roars, pulling his sword from its scabbard. “We have Rickon Stark, Ned Stark’s son, Robb Stark’s brother. _The Red Wolf_! We have Sansa Stark, daughter of Winterfell! We have Jon Snow, son of Ned Stark! The She-Wolf and the White Wolf!” He takes a knee and says, “We have Rickon Stark, _King in the North_!” 

The sound of sword after sword being pulled from their scabbard light up the air. “King in the North!” 

It rings in Jon’s ears, around and around and around. It takes only moments for all the Northern lords to get to their feet, screaming rage and grief and war aloud. 

“King in the North,” they say. King in the North. King in the North. King in the North. 

 

After, Jon sits in front of the fire in Father’s solar. Tormund is picking up everything in the room and examining it carefully before placing it back down again. Sansa has gone to put Rickon to bed, as though he is six and not twelve. 

One would think that Westeros would be wearied by the idea of another king after having had so many of late. He isn’t even certain of the number. 

Robert Baratheon. Stannis Baratheon. Renly Baratheon. Joffrey Lannister. Robb Stark. Balon Greyjoy. Tommen Baratheon. And now, Rickon Stark. 

Eight in all. 

“I’m not sure what I expected to have happen,” Sansa says as she closes the door to the solar. “But it wasn’t that. First Rickon, then Lady Mormont, _then_ …” She trails off, though it isn’t as though any of them have forgotten. 

King in the North. King in the North. 

“It isn’t as though Rickon was a surprise though.” Tormund picks up a delicately carved walnut and bites down on it gently, then says, “What’s the point of a nut you can’t eat?” 

“It was for me,” Jon says. “Rickon’s speech, not the decorative walnut.” 

Sansa sits down opposite Jon and stares into the fire. 

“He’s angry and it’s the two of you who wanted the Maester to start with the history of the Starks and the North. An endless stream of _loyalty_ and _oaths_ and these lords ancestors standing with the Starks in good times and bad. He spoke to me about it. Why then, but not now? That, and I heard him practising the speech on Rhaegal. ‘I honour Lord Royce of the Vale, who is no stranger here’.” 

“And he asked me about Lord Royce and Lady Mormont,” Sansa says. “I just thought he wanted to be able to make conversation at the feast.” She turns her eyes to the ceiling. “We’ll have to keep a closer eye on him from now on. I hope we can help him lead, and help him lead well.” Her brow is furrowed and her jaw clenched. 

“I’ve learned we can only do our best,” Tormund says. “And make do with what results from that.” 

She turns her head towards him and smiles, just a little. 

 

He sits with Sansa after dinner the next night. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier now, but even so there’s enough light from the oil lamps in Father’s solar that she’s sewing, a cloak laying over her lap as she carefully attaches a fur lining. The precise, repetitive motion of her hand is soothing. 

“This is far too long for me,” he says, and picks up the end of the cloak that Sansa is sewing. 

“Yes,” she says. 

He examines it closely. “If it’s for Rickon, I think you’re overestimating how fast he will grow.” 

She rolls her eyes. “It’s for Tormund.” She looks up at him and frowns. “Do you think he’ll like it?” 

“I—yes.” Actually, he has no idea whether Tormund will like it. Tormund has worn the same clothes the whole time Jon has known him. Perhaps they have some sentimental value to him, but that doesn’t seem likely. 

“I wanted—I’m sorry I wasn’t kind to you after the conversation with Lord Reed,” Sansa says. She has gone back to her sewing, staring down at it intently. 

“It’s fine. I understand why you said what you did.” 

“I’m not sorry for what I said,” she says. “I’m sorry for how I said it.” Her hands clench, the fabric of the cloak scrunching up in her grip. She looks up at him, her face bland and sad. “You’re my brother and I love you. None of this changes that, not for me. If it does for you—” 

“It doesn’t,” he interrupts. He tries and fails to not sound pathetically relieved but her smile, small and genuine, is more than worth any embarrassment. 

“We haven’t discussed your staying in the free folk camp, rather than inside Winterfell,” she says. Her eyes search his face as she speaks, though for what he isn’t sure. 

“No, we haven’t.” After the battle he had been too weighed down by all that had happened before, by all that he couldn’t stop. Now, he has Tormund and Rhaegal in the free folk camp. He could live with being further from Tormund if he had to, but Rhaegal requires about the same amount of attention as Arya had as a toddler. Which is to say, a great deal more attention than anyone would think possible. 

“Your room here is prepared for you, if you want it. I won’t put anyone else in it, even if you don’t want it. It’s yours.” She stares sadly at him and if it were only him, he would fetch his things now, if only to banish that look from her face. 

“Rhaegal requires a lot of attention, but even if she didn’t, I couldn’t leave her in the free folk camp without supervision. They would be unhappy and it would be more than fair for them to be so. If it were only me…” 

There is a sudden and unexpected look of mischief on her face, a true smile tugging at her lips. “You would be in the free folk camp with Tormund. I am not so blind as all that.” 

He goes bright red. “Well—that is—I don’t—”

“I see how he looks at you, and how you look at him in return. You are not the first such people to ever live.” She reaches over and takes his hand in hers. “I am pleased for you. You should take your joy where you find it. There has been so little of it for so long.” 

He nods and she returns to her sewing. They are silent for a long time and it’s only as he begins to feel his eyes grow heavy that he finally says what has been weighing on his mind all these long weeks. “Littlefinger—”

She looks up from her sewing, a furrow settling in between her brows. “He wants to marry me. I don't want to do so but…he isn’t a man you can say no to as often as I have.” 

“And he saved us,” Jon says softly. 

“Yes. He saved us.” Her mouth twists bitterly. “I don’t know what to do. Perhaps it will come to me in time, but for now…” 

He nods. If only they were safe and secure enough to be able to tell Littlefinger to go back to the Vale, back to King’s Landing, to go anywhere that isn't here. “Is there anything I can do?” 

She does something with her mouth that might be a smile, if one were being very generous with the description. “You’re doing it now. If I think of anything else…” 

He pats her on the shoulder as he goes to leave and she grips his hand tightly for a moment, before waving him away.

 

“I want to suck your cock again,” Jon says, not long after pushing Tormund into his tent. 

“Feel like you need the practice?” Tormund smirks. 

Jon ignores the smirk and reaches for the tie on Tormund’s pants. “Yes.” 

Tormund laughs. “You’re a strange man Jon Snow, but I’m getting my cock sucked out of it, so who am I to complain?” 

“That would be silly,” Jon agrees, and leads Tormund over to the tents sole chair. He undoes his hair, hoping that is clue enough, and pulls Tormund’s pants half-way down his thighs before pushing him into the seat. He drops to his knees and presses his hands to Tormund’s thighs to warm them for a moment. Tormund is half-hard already and it takes gratifyingly few pulls of Jon’s hand to get him properly hard. 

At some point, Tormund started laughing again though he stops abruptly when Jon leans down and tries to swallow him down as far he can go, half-choking. He pulls back to suck on the head. The stretch of his jaw, the feel of Tormund’s cock in his mouth, pressing against his tongue—it feels good, overwhelming even. 

He'd been thinking about this at odd times, times when he should have been thinking about lords and kings and the coming winter. Tormund groans and grabs a handful of Jon’s hair and pulls him off his cock. He leans down and kisses Jon, rough and wet. 

When Tormund breaks the kiss, Jon leans down again and runs his tongue from the base of Tormund’s cock up to the head. He then takes it in his mouth and swallows it down, trying to get further down than he had last time. Tormund’s hand is still clutching at Jon’s hair and he pulls it til Jon’s just holding the head of it against his lips. Jon licks the head and Tormund curses under his breath. 

He wraps a hand around the base of Tormund’s cock and swallows him down again and again until they're both moaning almost continuously and he has to pull off and try to surreptitiously wipe drool off his chin. He reaches between his legs and gropes himself roughly, his pants uncomfortably tight. Tormund has started jerking off his own cock, staring intently down at Jon at his feet. 

Tormund had let go of Jon’s hair and he reaches out and grabs Tormund’s hand, guiding it back to his head. Tormund grins, flashing his teeth, and pulls hard. Jon moans and takes Tormund’s cock back into his mouth. If Jon had been leading before, Tormund is now, his grip in Jon’s hair holding him in place while his hips thrust in and out of Jon’s mouth. 

Tormund’s saying, “Fuck yes, so good, such a fucking good boy for me aren’t you?” and Jon’s moaning and trying to say yes, yes, yes around Tormund’s cock. 

Tormund comes down Jon’s throat and only seconds after swallowing down as much as he could, Jon is frantically trying to pull his own cock out. Tormund reaches down and gropes Jon through his pants and Jon’s cock is only half out of his smallclothes when he’s coming, moaning and gasping and thrusting his hand between his teeth as he says Tormund, Tormund.

 

He dreams he’s standing on a balcony, overlooking a great city. He draws in a deep breath and then gags, choking on the smell. “What—what is that?” He turns his head and isn’t surprised to find Daenerys standing beside him. 

She laughs. “Half a million people all living on top of each other.” 

“It’s _awful_.” 

“I suppose. I grew up in cities, I’ve never really noticed it.” She sniffs. “I suppose I can smell it. Mostly I just smell the sea. King’s Landing is a small city compared to Braavos, or Essos.” 

Parts of the city are nothing more than smoking ruins. Some of it is still ablaze and he feels a shiver run down his spine. Winterfell is no city, but he sees it burning in his nightmares some nights and it looks a little like this. “I suppose where dragon’s go, so go fire.” 

“That is true, but it wasn’t my dragons that did this. The Lannister woman was queen here when we arrived. All her children had died and she had claimed the throne for herself. She set the city alight with wildfire rather than let it fall to us. She was already dead when we took the throne room. Near as we can tell, her brother strangled her, making him King and Queenslayer both. He was dead beside her, fallen on his sword.” 

“By the gods,” he says softly. She could have killed every last person in King’s Landing if she’d had enough wildfire. Perhaps she had thought the whole city and its people hers to do with as she wished, to live and die and exist at all only by her will and whim. 

“To the North and...” Her brow furrows. “Is it simply called ‘the Wall’ or does it have a more proper name?” 

“It’s just called the Wall. When you see it, you’ll understand.” 

Her chin goes up and there is a hard look to her eyes. “Yes. Perhaps I will.”


End file.
